The website of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai now sports a Internet address completely in Arabic.

H.H. Sheikh Mohammed's website can now be reached through 'sheikh-mohammed-bin-rashid.emarat' or 'mohammed-bin-rashid.emarat' when typed in Arabic script.

The new .emarat domain was made possible after the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority won approval from the Internet Corporation Assigned for Names and Numbers (ICCAN) to register domain names in the Arabic language.

.emarat will be regarded as the official Arabic top level domain for the UAE from next month.

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Mohammed Gheyath, executive director, Technology Development Affairs at the TRA, revealed in a WAM report that .emarat registration would begin by the end of May for government entities, followed by applications from dedicated trademarks on September 27th and then finally for ‘distinguished names' after November 14th.

The final phase in December will see registration open to all users in the UAE.

Egypt was the first Middle Eastern country to launch an all-Arabic web address earlier this month for their Communications and Information Technology website that sports the Arabic string equivalent of ‘.misr' in its URL.